I had a strange dream last night.  In this dream I tried to help someone (a confident yoga teacher) find something in a dark basement. I ran after him to help because I knew it would be very dark and very dangerous down there. But he shut the door on me. And I was left behind in a room full of beautiful, happy, healthy people. It was then that I felt the arch of my foot throbbing. Refusing to acknowledge the pain only led to it increasing and traveling to the top of my foot, my ankle and my calf. When it became nearly unbearable I looked down to find swollen blackness had encased my lower leg like burnt elephant skin. I recall thinking, “This is okay. You can handle this by ignoring it some more.” Just then a partygoer with a handy pair of scissors grabbed my leg and started cutting the damaged encasing away. I was semi-terrified but decided to trust them and was surprised to feel no pain as the damaged skin fell away in sheets. I watched as my leg emerged – pale, healthy and pain free.

I think I know what this dream is about.
It’s about opening my eyes to the constant need to close them.
It’s about learning to let others fend for themselves.
It’s about cutting away the things that bring me pain (not to be confused with ignoring things that give me pain!)
It’s about trusting others to help me.
It’s about re-claiming space with the happy, healthy people.

This is the perfect sort of dream for a mom of a child in recovery to have.

It’s funny how our subconscious sends us freaky night time missives and our waking mind attempts to make sense of them. Of course I can read this dream many ways. Possibly I should be more humble – who do I think I am that I can help an athletic male yogi avoid danger? Or maybe I am simply being reminded to run a little less so my foot doesn’t throb in my sleep.

Or possibly my brain is sending me the naughty subliminal message to get in with the type of people who run with scissors.

🙂